Eeba says … lots and lots of things, mostly in the form of 4839028 questions a day

The age that Eva is at is challenging. Like, super challenging. And the closer we get to 3, the worse it seems to be getting. So sometimes I really need to stop and remind myself of the fun that this age brings, too. She is so inquisitive, learning more about the world every day. Of course, that manifests in the form of 4890358340 questions a minute, but I am attempting to see the beauty in that instead of always getting annoyed and shushing her. I am trying to engage in meaningful conversation with her, as I aid her learning about the world.

So because I need the memory refresher of how cut and fun and exciting this age can be, I decided it was time for another post all about my girl Eebs.

It’s not secret that E loves to sing. She sings all day, every day. Recently, her favourite song is “We Shall Assemble”. And it’s another one of those ones that will make me so sad when she finally realizes what the actual words are and corrects her. Because at this point, “Glory and honour and dominion” comes out “glory en tonor and ominia!” I die a little each time.

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A common phrase lately has been “But my favourite part is/isn’t _____”. Mostly she uses this to get out of doing something she doesn’t want to do or stopping doing something she does want to do. “Evalyn, it’s time to go inside”. “But my favourite part isn’t going inside. My favourite part is staying outside”.

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On the way to church a while back she piped up and asked me if Jesus was a boy or a girl. I told her he was a boy. The response? “Mmhm, okay, so does he stand up to go pee?” Face palm.

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She participated in a few days of Bible Day Camp at our church a few weeks ago. On the last day as we were driving there she said, “Do you know what I did at Bible Day Camp? I clapped, jumped and PRAISED GOD! I told the kids ‘We HAVE to be quiet. We have to praise God!’ He is in my heart and He is in your heart so I will SEND IT UP TO HEAVEN". Do we have a future television evangelist on our hands?

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Last week, one of Eva’s friends from preschool came over for a play date. And let’s just say the date didn’t start out so well. She had brought along a baby doll and both girls decided that that baby was the absolute and only thing worth playing with. So, the first fifteen minutes or so were spent refereeing in a major way. At one point, her friend’s mom said, “What do you think Mrs. F (their preschool teacher) would say if this happened at school? Maybe we should call her and ask her”. Next thing I knew, Eva had a toy phone up to her ear and was saying, “Uh huh, yes, okay, I will tell her” and then put the phone down and said “P, Mrs.. F said you have to give me that baby”.

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She is very into describing things. If I ask her to pick up the book on the floor she will say, “This book? This book that is on the green carpet that is beside the pink bow and underneath the yellow pillow? Is that the book you are talking about? Is that the one you are meaning?” It’s even funnier when she speaks this way to describe herself. “Eva, you are sweet”. “Who is sweet mom? Are you saying I am sweet? Are you saying this girl with a blue dress and a ponytail on the side who is sitting on the couch eating an apple is sweet? Is that the girl you are talking about?” One of the best ones was when she said, “The lady who was the pink cupcake pants on (um… HER) had to go to the hospital last weekend (not last weekend, more like, in February) because she had an ouchie pee pee”. Yep, we’re still talking about that one.

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She uses the phrase “Sure can” a lot. She said to her Grandpa “We can’t watch Diego today but we sure can watch Dora “and to her Papa, after telling him about ordering onion rings at the restaurant, “I didn’t like the inside but I sure did like the outside” (sidenote: fried food lover like her Mama). Another one of the best ones was when we went out for dinner with my aunt and uncle and she ordered herself shrimp and rice. When she started eating she said, “This shrimp is yummy but I sure didn’t order coleslaw”.

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She’s also very humble. She will be quick to tell you that she’s a great singer, or to tell her Nana, “Nana? You know what? I’m really awesome”.

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When we went to the pool for the first time this summer, I was surprised at how brave she got. I decided that we were best to get her a puddle jumper, even though we will most always be 1:1 ratio when swimming. I tried to order it online but they were on sale and the website wouldn’t work. I decided I’d just get it in store,but when I got to Walmart, discovered they don’t sell them in store. So, I told Eva I would find one a different time. That weekend, we were up north for my family reunion and my cousin’s kids had them and let her borrow one. As we were walking on the beach, I told her that what she was wearing was the floating thing I had tried to buy at walmart but couldn’t find. She said, “This is the thing you tried to get me? But they didn’t have it? Well, that’s HORRIBLE because I LOVE THIS”.

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Last week we had a situation where Gwen projectile vomited in the grocery store. Eva was so confused. She kept saying, “Did Gwen spook or did she spill her whole smoothie? Do we need to change her dress now?”

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She has a little trouble with the world regular. It often comes out regigular or regilla. Think, a cross between regular and vanilla. Recently, I figured out that she actually think regular and vanilla are one in the same. I guess I’ve probably described vanilla ice cream as ‘plain’ and also used regular and plain to describe the same thing. Anyway, somehow along the way she’s equated vanilla with being regular. When we were up north at my family reunion, the chairs in our cabin were rather low, making it tricky for her to sit at them and reach her food at the table. I tried to convince her to sit in Gwen’s booster seat to eat for added height but of course this is too babyish and she’d have none of it. She sat there for two seconds and then said “Mom, I just want to sit on the vanilla chair, okay?”

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A few weeks ago, Evan was spending the morning at home working in the shop. I took advantage of the time when he was here to put Gwen for her nap and take my big girl out for a donut date. On the way home she said “I just love being with my mommy. This is my favourite day”. HEART BURST!

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Eva’s excitement leading up to Gwen’s birthday party was amazing. She was just so thrilled about it. I decorated for it the night before and when she got up that morning it was like Christmas. She was so pumped, “MOM! I love these decorations. They are so beautiful. They are perfect! They look so pretty!”

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And speaking of Gwen’s party, that combined with a few preschool friend’s parties and  few other birthdays we have celebrated – my girl has birthday on the brain. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t ask, “Is it my birthday party now? Is it September yet? Is it September and twenty second? Did ___ and ___ and ___ (listing all the names of people I’ve told her have to have birthdays before her) have their birthdays yet? At my birthday party I will let my friends pull on a piñata but it will be my turn to open my presents all by myself”. Also? She wants a lollipop birthday. And told me she wants her own phone, lawn mower, boat and toy car for presents. Well.

She loves her magna doodle. And lately, she always wants me to take pictures of her creations. Here we have a cow with a bow in her hair, a horse with a raincoat on, a pig with purple eye balls and two baby chicks.

      

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I asked her how her nap was when she woke up one day. Her response? “Terrible. I was dreaming about crocodiles and they bit my arms so now I have bug bites and that's what is making my nap horrible”.

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One day we were going to bake cookies. I told her she needed to clean up her toys first. She said, “Okay, you can clean up the princesses. And then you can clean up all the rest”. Not quite what I had in mind.

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Speaking of cleaning up, I seem to have created a monster. Today she was refusing to lay down for her nap because, in her words, “The toy stroller is not asposed to be in here! It’s asposed to be in between the blocks and the dollhouse!”

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Kids always have a way of keeping us humble. Like when she says, “Oh mommy. Do you have another baby in your tummy?” and when I say no she pokes my stomach and says, “Then what’s this?”

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She is kind of the definition of oldest child. As in, she’s as bossy as bossy can get. Not just to Gwen, but to anyone. She likes to be in charge and tell everyone exactly what they need to do and when they need to do it. We’re working on this one. The other day, she said to Gwen, “Okay, Gwen. You need to stop crying right now or you won’t get any snacks or any drinks all day”. Wow, that’s some tough love.

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I made pasta salad and Eva picked an artichoke out of it. She asked what it was and when I told her artichoke, she looked up, totally fearful and startled and said “WILL I CHOKE ON IT?”

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We were driving up north for the long weekend and we passed a transport truck hauling cows. Eva asked Evan where they were going and the thing is, with a husband who is a hunter and living on a farm, these things don’t get sugar coated. Eva knows that animals die and then become food that we eat. So, Evan was explaining to her that they were in that truck going to the butcher shop to be made into meat to sell at the store. Anyway, that whole conversation is beside the point, really. The actual point is that for the next twenty minutes, she said some variation of BITCHER shop probably 600 times.

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We went out for Sushi with my parents and brother/SIL on our way up north. During lunch, Evalyn asked her Unco for money. He handed her a fifty and she said “No, not this kind. I want real money. Do you have any pennies?” Um, girlfriend has much to learn.

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When we were getting ready to leave our family reunion (where there is over 50 people, I might add) Eva told me, “I’ll say bye to all these people but I’m not huggin’ dem”.

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One day while we were tidying up, I asked Eva where the thermometer for her Doctor set was. She said, “I don’t know but you can keep looking. If you look beside the fridge you’ll probably find it”. Two guesses where it was?

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She is mastering the art of stalling bedtime. She comes up with every excuse in the book, including, but not limited to coming out of her room, crying to tell me, “Tomorrow you will have to carry me because I will have sick legs”. Another one she likes to do is just ask a million questions about everything as I’m trying to say goodnight. One day she was busting out random questions about nothing and I just kept saying “I love you” over and over again and she finally said, “Mom, I love you, too, okay? BUT WHY DO PUPPIES SAY WOOF?”

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She has 12 months of big sisterdom under her belt, and the sweetness just hasn’t stopped. The other day she was sitting on her porch, feeding her baby and saying "I'm breasting baby Yadi. I have milk like you because I am a mommy too. So I am giving her milk from my breast feeds!"

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I asked her what is in her heart and she said, “It’s a thing in my tummy and it is for to love God”.

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“Mom, do you know why I frewed (threw) my playdoh? It’s because I was being rude”.

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While playing Doctor with me, she checked my heart and said, “We’re not quite done, my dear”. Then when she was done, she moved on to Tigger being her patient and said “There ya go, big boy. This won’t hurt a bit”.

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This morning didn’t start out so well. She woke up on the wrong side of the bed…to put it lightly. By breakfast she had finally calmed down and told me "In the bathroom I cried quietly and that was a little bit bad choice. But in my room I made big bad choices. Dad told me not to do that".

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Phew, that was a long one. Until next time.

two point five

My Eebs,

I write about you a lot in this little space. About the funny things you say and do. Your crazy antics. Your quirks. But it has been a long, long while since I’ve written to you here.

A long while since I’ve stopped to tell you how proud I am of the little girl you are. Of your sweet, nurturing, motherly heart. Of your compassion and sensitivity toward your sister and any other baby you interact with. Of your amazing sense of humour. Of your intelligence. Of your voice that never stops singing. Of your beaming smile. Of your joy.

I am so proud to call you mine.

Today, you are two and a half years old. The day I first met you is forever etched in my memory – as though it was yesterday. I can still feel your tiny body pressed against my chest as I hugged you and kissed you and poured tears of love on you for the first time.

I can get back to that moment in an instant. Yet, at the same time, you’ve always been here. It’s like a time before you is so distant I can hardly remember it.

You have changed me. You have molded me as a mother. You have taught me so much in such a short time. In an instant to can make my blood boil and then melt my heart. You make me laugh more than anything. Your hugs and kisses and cuddles prove to me that I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.

Forever you, my Big Baby Girl, will be the one who made me a mother. Thank you for that gift.

Just don’t grow up too fast.

My love for you knows no bounds.

Mama

surviving the bedtime crazy: part 2.0

A few months ago I wrote this post highlighting the challenges in surviving the evening hours with two two and under on my own. Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to have had way fewer evenings where this is necessary. The late fall and winter months mean work is less busy and there is less going on in the evenings for Evan, which means there are two to tackle bedtime more often. This makes mama happen.

Over the last three weeks, however, Evan’s been doing some work at our church which means he has been spoken for most evenings. So, once again, I’ve had to find my groove at doing the whole bedtime thing solo. What I’ve learned over the past few weeks is that now, surviving bedtime with the two of them? Piece of cake. Surviving mealtime, on the other hand? That’ll take me down. That’s a different story, though. My purpose in this post is to give an update on the whole bedtime thing now that I’ve got a few more months under my belt.

There are a few key reasons why bedtime seems to be much smoother.

First, bathtime. Gwen can now sit up and move around easily in the tub. I am not afraid of her sister crushing her or smothering her. This means dual bath time is possible and way less stressful than it used to be. Secondly, Gwen no longer freaks out the second she gets lifted out of the tub, expecting a boob to be in her mouth within a matter of milliseconds. This means that I can take the girls straight from dinner to the tub. Or, at least put them in the tub earlier in the evening as opposed to just before bed, even if not right after dinner. I bath them together, get Gwen out and PJed first, while E continues to play and cleans up the bath toys and then get her out and PJed.

Second, their bedtimes have adjusted. At the time that I wrote that previous post, both girls were going to bed between 7:30-7:45 which made it tricky to accomplish bedtime routines for both. Now, Gwen is in bed, asleep by 6:45-7 and Eva still goes to bed by 7:30-7:45. When I wrote the first post about the bedtime stuff, I was hesitant about having Gwen’s bedtime be earlier than Eva’s since I cherished that one on one cuddle time with her. I do miss that. I miss being able to nurse her and sit in the nursery holding her, sometimes for as long as an hour, before laying her down. But the good thing is that she usually makes her way into my bed in the wee hours of the morning anyway, so we still get that cuddle time. She also wakes up earlier than Eva most mornings, so we get some nice one on one before the Big Sissy is awake.

And lastly, Gwen no longer takes forever to go to sleep. She nurses for 3-4 minutes, and if she’s not already asleep when she’s done, as soon as I lay her down with her pacifier, she’s down for the count. There are very few nights (KNOCK ON WOOD AS HARD AS I CAN) that she puts up a fight to go to sleep. If she doesn’t immediately go to sleep, it usually doesn’t take a lot of effort, other than slipping the paci back into her mouth, or laying her back down if she’s standing up.

So, now, it usually goes like this. I can get both of the girls bathed and PJed by 6:30-6:45 and if it’s not bath night, it’s even smoother. Although bath night is a welcome distraction to kill some time between supper and bed. Often, Gwen has a bath every night and if Eva wants to join her she can but she doesn’t always. After PJs are done, we play for a while longer until Gwen starts to fuss. Then, if Eva is engrossed in something I just leave her be. If she needs a distraction, I’ll throw a bowl of crackers at her and turn on a show. Either way, it’s not a huge deal since Gwen nurses so quickly anyway. I’ve had nights where Eva just doesn’t seem to want to be distracted while I’m putting Gwen to bed and she has stood in the nursery beside us. So far, though, that hasn’t bothered Gwen and she still goes to sleep.

Then, when that’s done, I still have a good 30-40 minutes until Eva goes to bed. Depending on the night, she and I might have a shower (sometimes this is my best option for actually getting a shower myself), or I will clean up from dinner while she plays if I haven’t had a chance to. She may have a snack and watch a show or else we’ll do potty, pull up, teeth brushing and snuggle in her bed for a books and songs for a longer time before bed.

The spacing in the bedtimes has made it oh so much easier. So much. Eliminating my need to basically toss one kid into their bed and run to the next makes the evening quieter, more peaceful and less “I wanna pull all my hair out and then drown myself in chocolate”. Although, if I’m being totally honest, I do often feel that way anyway.

This new set up, with the earlier bedtime for the babe, makes the whole “bedtime” thing take much longer but also makes it a far less chaotic time. For now, when it’s dark and cold and icky and we wouldn’t be outside anyway, it works well. When summer comes and evenings are spent outside, we’ll see how it goes, as I’m sure Eva won’t be as interested in coming inside when Sissy has to go to bed. For now, though … you’ll be hearing no complaints from me.

It’s been too long

It’s been too long since I’ve sat down to jot down some things about my oldest little. I really do wish that I could somehow bottle up and contain every little thing she does. Wouldn’t that be nice? Over the Christmas holidays, my laptop crashed. It wasn’t a huge deal because I knew it was coming to the end of its life so everything important was all backed up. Everything except draft posts that I had written. I use windows live writer and totally forgot to save my drafts elsewhere. One, in particular, was a running list of “Evalynisms’ that I try to jot down on a daily basis. I am sad. I feel like a coupes months of her funny has just disappeared. But oh well, I try to remember the best ones and the rest just become a part of who she is, I guess.

Lately, she’s been the queen of conjunctions. For a long time, it was “cause”, now it is “but”. Every sentence begins and ends with “but” and there are usually a few “buts” thrown in the middle. “But I need a snack but my tummy is hungry but I want some pretzels but can I watch a show?”

Her most recent favourite story is “Curduroy” or “Quarter Bear” according to her. She loves reading it to her sister. “Quarter bear has a button but he doesn’t know where is his button. He goes boom on the lamp and goes ride on the alligator (escalator)”.

Whenever I tell her it’s time to do something, her automatic response is “Can I dust play four more minutes and DEN I go to bed?” Always “four more minutes”. Not sure if it’s a mix up between for a few more minutes and ___ number of minutes or what. But it’s hilar.

She has taken to calling both Gwennie and I “Sweetie Heart”. It’s kind of precious. Especially since I don’t say this myself. It’s all her.

The measures of love are hilarious. Most often it’s “I love you sixty clock” or “I love you Tuesday morning” or “I love you twenty four”.

She likes to talk for her sister. Soon will come a day when her sister will begin talking for herself. Won’t that be the day? But for now, Evalyn speaks in a high pitched squeaky voice when Gwennie needs to say something. (I have a video but it won’t let me upload. Boo)

She has added the word “Why” to her vocab. So that’s fun.

She’s sick with her first ear infection right now. We discovered it when she woke up one morning and said “Mommy. My ear has a sick in it”. We went to the Doctor (which was more than traumatic) and sure enough, she does. Now, every time she bumps her head, trips, coughs or does anything remotely resembling an illness or injury she tells me “I need to go back at dat Doctor”. The first day, when she was feeling really rotten, at one point I scooped her into my arms and said “Come here sweetie, mommy will make you feel better”. Her response, “No. Just give me some medicine”.

She’s having some serious trouble letting go of Christmas. Serious. As in, almost every day I hear something about “And dis is for you on Christmas day!” or questions about where the tree is. Where her Christmas plate is. And when it’s all coming back. Can’t blame her. We spend a whole month hyping it up and then it’s just over?

I feel like this is the most boring Evalyn says post yet. That’s what I get for not keeping a daily list and having to try to remember it all off the top of my head. I forget. See? This is why I blog.

And on that note … I’m off to restart my running list…

my girl eebs

I apologize that this is going to be so long but it’s been about a month since I’ve done one of these posts and let me tell ya, she’s had some doozies lately. I could literally write one of these posts every single day. So, here we go. Eva-isms part 4890584:

Tonight we drove to the mall for our second visit with Santa. On the way, she kept asking if we were going to the North Pole. I couldn’t seem to convince her it was just the mall. I guess this whole thing is confusing, considering the first time we went she asked if we “could go see Jesus now”. And then, we started talking about how we’d leave cookies and milk and carrots for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas eve and she said, “Will the reindeers chew dem up? And does Santa drink the milk? Does he drink it from da breast-seeding?”  Um, not exactly kid. Then when we saw him, she was not scared at all this time. She just said “Hey Santa, can I have my present now?” Whoops.

Then, on the drive home I asked her what she did at the mall and she said, “Okay, Mom. When we get home, I’ll tell ya all about it, alright? I’ll tell ya with nice words”.

The other day she was playing and she told me, “Mommy, you are not ah-youd to spoke until Jesus comes”. Well, alright then.

She’s really interested in making her baby sister happy lately. On a daily basis, she will sing a song or read a story or do anything and when Gwennie smiles she squeals with delight, “I sang a song to Gwennie and dat makes her soooo happy!” It’s precious, for real.

A while back, she was walking around, feeding her baby in a sling (a skill I have not mastered). She switched sides so the baby could have “de osser milk” and she put this blanket over her and said “I gotta keep my baby prisate”.

My parents are Nana and Papa and Evan’s parents are Nana and Grandpa. Having two Nanas can be quite confusing but she’s figured out how to distinguish them. She now calls my mom “The Nana with the Papa Nana” and Evan’s mom “The Nana with the Grandpa Nana”.

A while back she was playing very independently with her Little People Nativity Set. I love listening to her imagination and creativity develop. Have to say I laughed when I heard, “You listen to me baby Jesus. I said stay ober der. You don’t say no to me. It’s time to talk nicely. You stay with Joseph or go back to bed”.

Lately, she has been the queen of run on sentences and ‘cuz is her current conjunction of choice. For example, “You said good morning cuz’ I woke up cuz’ I got out of bed, cuz’ you opened my door, cuz’ Daddy was still sleeping, cuz’ we can have breakfast now, cuz’ I went potty, cuz’ I have undies, cuz’ I want a banana”.

I was in the kitchen and the girls were playing on the living room floor. And of course, by playing, I mean Eva was putting blankets on top of Gwen and pushing her head down into a pillow telling her it was time for sleeping (her new favourite game). Suddenly, I heard her say, “Oh did I bite you Gwennie? Don’t worry. I just a little bit bite you”. Supervision FAIL.

She has been quite interested in the whole Christmas thing. She was reading the Christmas story to me and it went like this: "Once upon a time Mary and Joseph and a donkey went for a longggg walk. They walked to Vineland. Then baby Jesus got borned in the hay". Pretty much sums it up.

On another Christmas note, apparently the fact that we say “Merry Christmas” and Jesus’ mother was “Mary” is quite confusing to the 2 year old mind. Whenever she hears Merry Christmas she says, “Where’s Mary? Is baby Jesus in her tummy?”

On the weekend, we were up before the sun. Wait, we’re up before the sun everyday. Anyway, it was a rare morning that Gwennie was still sleeping, so Eva and I were cuddling on the couch. There is one house across a couple fields that leaves the Christmas lights on all night. She was in awe of the boo-tiful lights and then started counting how many polar bears she could see. Apparently, there were 7. Then when we went potty she said, “Yook Mom! Ders a baby polar bear. Right der in that cage. We better get him out. You better pet him. You better kiss him”. She named him Poalie and we took care of him all day. I guess we just need to be better about securing our house from wild animals since there was a skunk climbing on my chair at dinner a few weeks ago.

In the car she asked me, “Mom, am I free or am I seben?” I said, “You are two”. She said, “I’m four probably”.

We’ve been spending a lot of time talking about the significance of Christmas and about the gift of Jesus’ birth. One time while talking she asked me, “Mom, where is Jesus?” I told her that he is in her heart and she said “No he’s on the board at Mrs. F’s house”.

Her independence has really started to shine through since she’s been potty training. Like she wasn’t independent before. <sarcasm font>. Often, when she goes potty she tells me, “Don’t come wis me. I need to hab a priva-seat”.

Lately, there have been some traits coming out in Eva that show how much like me she really is. She walks around with her magna doodle ‘taking attendance’. "Is my friend Daddy here? No, he’s at work. Is my friend Mommy here? Yes. She’s here. Glad to see you here today”. She has also started making lists on her magnadoodle. Specifically, asking me what I want for Christmas and ‘writing it down’. It’s so cute. She also loves to be ticked like I do. If I start to rub her arms, she will take her shirt off and hold her bare arm out to me to tickle and then make me tickle the other one.

A few weeks ago at dinner she was rambling on and on and on (she tends to do this, ya know) and she said to Evan, “My baby in my tummy is coming out later. My milk come out. My milk come from my bretts. Wanna see. Just yook though. Don’t touch my bretts”.

It’s no secret that the twos can be terrible. A few weeks ago, she had a downright kicking, screaming, flailing temper tantrum because “Gwennie spit up on her”. Truth was she was climbing all over us while I was nursing and a bit of milk from the edge of Gwen’s mouth got on her sleeve. She then proceeded to have a fit, screaming as though I was ripping her fingernails off, yelling “DIS IS ALL SOAKING WET. I NEED A NEW SHIRT. CAN’T YOU GIVE ME A NEW SHIRT? IT’S SOAKING”. Two minutes later, she was over it, although she continued to hold her “soaking wet” arm awkwardly in the air for about 10 minutes.

Girlfriend is obsessed with TV. Although, this obsession is fairly theoretical since she will rarely watch for more than 10 minutes. Anyway, she asks  us NON stop if she can watch. When she gets up in the morning and we ask what she wants for breakfast, instead of telling us, it’s “Can I watch a show wis it?” Picture this being said with a sly, eyebrows raised expression.

She is constantly using terms of endearment for basically everyone. She calls Evan “Daddy boy” and me  “Sweetie heart”, “Lover baby and “Sweet Mom” all the time. That won’t ever get old.

I have myself a nice pair of purple skinnies. Evan hates them. Absolutely despises them. I put them on for church last week and walked into the bathroom. Evan immediately gave me a disgusted look and right at the exact moment, Evalyn shouted “Oh man! COOL PURPLE PANTS MAMA!” I’ll stick with her opinion, thankyouverymuch.

That same day, it was her BFF’s first birthday and on the way to his party she was singing away in the car (unusual, I KNOW) and sang “We’re go-ning to the party on the day of the Lord and Jesus is my Lord on the birthday!”

Since the whole potty training thing has been going down, there tends to be more poop talk in my house than I am typically comfortable with. One time, when Eva did a #2 she told me, “Yook Mom. It’s yong of a snake!” (as long as a snake). I’d be lying if I told you we haven’t since started  asking her if she “needs to do a long of a snake”… Just a few days ago she did her #2 and told me “It’s not long of a snake today. It’s just long of a turtle”.

She’ll hate me someday for sharing these things, won’t she?

Ho ho ho!

Yesterday was a big day for us. We kicked off the holiday season with a bang by going to the mall to visit Santa and take a ride (or four) on the Polar Bear Express. Before I go further, let me mention that this was Eva’s first trip into real public wearing undies since she’s been potty trained. She has gotten out of the house a lot but just to school, church and friend’s/family’s homes. It was the first time in a store or mall or anything like that. So, it could have been a disaster. But of course, it was not. She did great on the 45 minute drive there. Told me she had to go potty when we got there so we raced into Old Navy and she went. Of course she went a few more times while we were there … I’m pretty sure the novelty of going into the bathroom was a big part of it because she never has to pee that often, but hey. Along with that, she behaved so well which sometimes isn’t always the case when you try to contain a toddler in a stroller in the mall. She sat nicely for dinner and listened to me and the bestie’s the whole time. What a sweet girl. On the way home, I told her how proud I was that she was such a good girl and listened and obeyed the whole time we were out. She said… “And Cindy, too. I proud of Cindy. She a good girl, too”. Well, props to Cindy.

Now onto the good stuff. We had heard that the mall had a pretty sweet Santa display so we decided to hit the town and take the kids. The day before, I started prepping Evalyn because I had a feeling she might not be too pumped with the Big Guy once we got there. When I showed her the picture of her sitting on Santa’s lap last year, she looked at me like I must be crazy. Like, “waitaminute … you’re going to make me sit there with that big creepy guy"? But, despite that, she seemed excited. She asked over and over again when we were going to see Santa. When she got up yesterday she was a bit confused and asked “Can we go see Jesus now?” Erm, gotta get this straight, I guess. I took her to preschool in the morning and she excitedly told her teacher that she would be going to see Santa after nap.

When we got home, I’ve never seen her eat lunch that fast and be that eager to go to sleep. On the drive to the mall she asked me if we were at Santa’s house yet about 483902483 times. Asked if he would be on a big chair. If he’d have a beard. If she could say “Merry Christmas” to him. Once we got there, she was excited but waited pretty patiently while I went to a store to do a return. We met up with the girls and the babes and headed to Santa. I was still pretty confident that she might totally back out as soon as she saw him.

When we got there, there was no line up but one child already speaking with Santa, so we were up next. That’s when the positive self talk started. She was like, “I want to see Santa. I don’t want to see Santa. I don’t want to sit with him. Is it my turn now? I don’t want to see him. Can I go say hi now?” When it was our turn, I was holding Gwen so I took her hand and started to walk toward him. Then she started back pedaling. She put the breaks on. I told her that she didn’t have to sit on his lap, just say hi. So Gwennie sat on his lap and Eva hesitantly got up beside him on the bench.

She was just so cute. She was obviously nervous and hesitant of him but wanted so badly to enjoy it and have fun. At one point, she even said, “Dis is fun. Sitting wis Santa is fun” with a shaky, kind of whimpery voice. Despite her reservations she was so polite to Santa. Wished him a Merry Christmas and thanked him for the candy cane and coloring book.

As soon as she was done with Santa, she wasted no time in getting in line for the train ride. She had fun yelling “ALL ABOARD” and looking at all the directions around the track. Mr. Conductor made the ride even better with his excitement and animation. And of course, the girls and I kept ourselves totally reserved and quiet. Pause, not. It was like housewives gone wild. We were hooping and hollering like we were on the biggest roller coaster of our lives. We’ve already made plans to go back next week. Without the kids. Okay, maybe not. But, seriously … we are taking the kids back at least once more before Christmas and are intending to wear that train ride out! We may even make it a goal to get banned.

 

After Santa, we went to grab some dinner. Hello, Poutine! Best friends, Santa, train rides and poutine all in one afternoon? I can hardly handle it! During dinner, Evalyn kept asking over and over again if we could see Santa again.

So, duh. We did. And this time, we managed to snag this beauty …Imagine a world where you get a picture of Santa with three moms and four kids and everyone is looking at the camera! My pictures aren’t the greatest because I only had my phone. I figured we wouldn’t be allowed to take our own photos so I didn’t even bother with my camera. I will know better for next time. They let us take as many as we wanted and we didn’t have to pay for their over priced lame photos.

Before heading home we may or may not have taken another spin around the train. Can you blame us? I mean, really.

If this wasn’t enough to get me in the holiday spirit, we have been wearing Christmas PJs, watching Christmas shows, reading Christmas books, playing with Christmas toys and wrapping Christmas presents like crazy around here. We don’t have our tree or decorations up (this weekend, folks) but we are in the spirit around here, nonetheless. I am so excited for this year – Gwen’s first Christmas, our first Christmas in our new home and the first year that Evalyn is showing some major excitement and understanding about the holiday season.

It’s going to be a fun, fun month.

it’s that time again …

It’s been a long while since I’ve jotted down some of the best of Eva’s little sayings so I figured it’s time again.

At Halloween, girlfriend was a bit confused. When I tried to explain to her what halloween and trick or treating was all about, this was what I got: “Is trick or treat kiss Eeba? Is trick or treat has a beard? Is trick or treat has a sleigh?” Um, not quite.

Lately I’ve noticed her picking up a few expressions that just aren’t quite right. For example, she always asks me if I want “a couple tea”, a “kaprise” or a “kapresent”, and when she’s surprised her first exclamation is usually “wha da worl?”

Currently, her favourite DVD is Leapfrog Letter Factory. Along with thanking that DVD for teaching her around half of the letter sounds in a few weeks, I also thank said DVD for the expression, “okie dokie artichokie”.

Nothing helps you realize expressions you commonly use more than listening to your child talk. I have learned a lot about myself lately when I’m not listening to her and she says, “MOMMY. I’n ASKING YOU!”. Perhaps the best one was: “Evalyn you need to listen and obey. I’m asking you to clean up your puzzles” to which she responded, “I’N ASKING YOU TO STOP ASKING ME THAT!”

This one’s gotta be my favourite. The other day we were driving to town and she said, “Mama! I got a sneeze in my nose. I gotta bless it out. There. I blessed it down. It’s all fixed now”.

Occasionally, she will come up to me and ask me, “would you like to hab a bisit?” when I say yes, she will fold her hands in her lap and say “So, how your day was?”

Because of the PTing thing that’s been going on around here, she’s very eager to encourage and reward both Evan and I for our, ahem, successes. “What kinda poop is it Daddy? Is it a ‘uge one? Can I slush it down? I so proud of you Daddy!”

I adore when I see her doing things around home that reflect what she learns at preschool. For example, lately she’s been walking around with her magna doodle (ahem, magnet dude I should say) taking attendance. “Is my friend Daddy here? Nope, he’s at work. Is my friend Nana here? Nope, she’s at da cottage. Is my friend Unco here? Nope, he’s sick. Is my friend Mommy here? Yep. She’s here. Nice today to see you Mommy!”

In this day and age it’s no secret that kids are going to be keen on technology. Somehow we made it two years one month and twenty seven days before Eva figured out how to unlock our iPhones. But now she can do it. And open the camera. And take photos. So she’s constantly asking if she can “take a smile of me”.

On the same note, as we packed up into the truck the other day, she said “Okay, all aboard (which she always says when we get in a vehicle now). Everybody got da phones?"

Before church on Sunday, she was walking around with my phone pretending to talk to her Sunday school teacher. “Hello Ms Cook! Yes, yeah. Yep. Okay. Yes. Uh huh. Yes. I coming. Okay. Yes. Yes, I can’t wait too”.

Since we’re in the midst of potty training, you know that nothing would make me run faster than hearing, “Look Mom! I put a poo on your phone!” Yep … she said it. And this is what I found…

These are just a few that I can remember off the top of my head, but you know … basically to sum it up, she’s all together awesome and hilarious. Love this kid!

the day she started (and did not quit) potty training

WARNING: This post uses the word POOP more times than I care to admit. Read at your own risk.

Notice the difference in the title from my last post about potty training? The day I started potty training versus the day she started potty training. It started about two weeks ago. On Halloween. I went to pick Eva up from preschool as usual. When I got there, her teacher told me that she had been doing a great job during bathroom time. Of course, I was a bit surprised. I asked if she meant trying or actually going. She said she had been peeing every day. When she saw I was surprised, she said “Aren’t you training at home? Eva told me she goes on the potty at home”. My 2 year old liar. Bless her.

On the drive home I talked it up and told her I was so proud of her for going on the potty at school. When we got home and sat down to lunch she told me she needed to go to the potty and poop. I told her to finish her lunch first because over the past weeks she had been using going to the potty as an excuse to get out of any and everything. But, this time, she was holding herself up on her seat and said “Mommy! I need to go”. So we went. And she went. Immediately. No hesitation. No fear. Nothing. She just went.

I was super pumped and of course praised her up the wazoo. Since it was Halloween, we were heading out after nap so I couldn’t do much more that day but I asked her the next morning if she wanted to be a big girl and go on the potty. She said yes. So, I pulled the little potty out, took of her dirty diaper and left her bottomless. Within ten minutes, when I was in the kitchen, I heard “MOMMY! CAN’T YOU COME CLEAN UP THE POOP?”

Uh oh.

I raced into the living room and sure enough she was huddled over a turd on the floor. TMI? Sorry about your luck. I was shocked because she had just had a dirty diaper and rarely goes twice in a row like that. But, as shocked as I was, I am pretty sure she was even more shocked than me. As I cleaned things up, I talked to her about how she doesn’t wear diapers any more and that she needed to sit on the potty every time she felt like she needed to go.

I thought “perfect, we’re off to a fab start”. Sarcasm font.

As the day went on, things got better and better. She put a lot of tinkles in the potty. Too many, in fact. I could tell she was forcing herself to go to get candy but for the first day, I thought that was just fine. The next day, she got even better. Many times, she took herself to the potty without prompting. And we had success with #2 on the potty too. On Saturday morning we added undies to the mix and she did great. Saturday afternoon we went a step further and put pants on. We even ventured outside to play and do some yard work.

Over those three days, she wasn’t 100% but she was doing pretty dang good. We decided on Saturday night to brave it up and head to church with her in undies on Sunday. And? That was her first 100% accident free day. She did wonderfully. Telling us during service when she needed to go potty and telling her Sunday school teacher, too.

Monday again, was 100% accident free, even during a 30 minute car ride and play date at a friend’s. On Tuesday, I decided to keep her home from preschool for one more day of practice. I had already told her teacher she’d been gone since we had been planning to visit Nana and Papa before all of this began. That’s when things started to go downhill. I guess after doing so well for so many days, I naively thought we were in the clear. Tuesday brought with it 2 pee accidents and 2 poop accidents and I was really feeling discouraged. I had stopped prompting her since she had been doing so well and after the accidents I was back on her like a crazy person and I think she found that annoying and stopped wanting to care about the potty.

At the end of the day, I was having major second thoughts about sending her to school the next day. Maybe I just needed to keep her home again. Eventually, Evan and my mom convinced me to send her, as that was the place the whole thing started. So send her I did. With four changes of clothes. And when I picked her up I fully expected her to be wearing different pants than I dropped her off in – but she wasn’t. She had stayed dry all morning and even held it in and only gone during potty time. That was a huge relief to me as well, as she was still usually going every 30-40 minutes at home.

Since then, we’ve still had our ups and downs. She is doing amazingly well with the pee portion. She hasn’t had a pee accident for me since Thursday afternoon and even stayed dry on the 1.5 hour car ride to and from my parent’s house, even though she was wearing a pull up. She did wet her pants when she was with a babysitter on Saturday, but overall, she’s done great. The whole #2 thing has proven to be more of a challenge. The first few days, she was awesome. She said, “I have to poop” and then pooped. However, since that Tuesday that she had 2 accidents, it’s been dicey. She will tell me she has to go, sit down and pee and then insist she’s done, freaking out if I try to make her stay on. Then, she gets off and has an accident. That or she holds it and goes in her pull up when I put her down for a nap. Yesterday, she even had a #2 accident at school which really surprised me since she would never have pooped in a diaper there. It happened just before I picked her up, on the playground, and she walked up to her teacher and said “I fink I need to ask my mommy to take me potty”. Bless her heart.

Right now, it’s pretty iffy. Some days she still tells me and goes no problem. Other days, not so much. In the 14 days we’ve been training, 8 days she has been #2 successful and 7 days she has not (4 times having full on accidents in the undies or in the tub, for the love, and the other times going in a pull up). So, I guess that’s still better than it could be. We are using a Dora sticker potty chart courtesy of Melissa in hopes that it will help her to get more successful with the #2s.

Some days are frustrating and stressful but I keep reminding myself to lower my expectations and that this too shall pass. Right now, we couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s been doing so well and trying so hard, despite her occasional accident. I know soon enough we’ll get there and she’ll be spot on.

happenings

I’ve been so scarce around here lately. I didn’t really mean for that to happen but, well, you know – it happened. Life happened. The biggest thing that has kept me away from here lately is that I’ve been up to my eyeballs in potty training for the last week. Many of you know already, but last Wednesday when I picked Evalyn up from school her teacher told me she’d been doing great during bathroom time. When she saw I surprised she said, “Oh? Aren’t you training at home?” … when I told her we weren’t, she said that Miss Eva had told her that she goes pee on the potty at home. LIAR. Anyway, when we got home that day, E told me she needed to use the potty. And did it. And basically hasn’t looked back since. This deserves a post of it’s own and there will be one next week so I’ll just leave it here – there are ups and downs and we’re by no means “finished” potty training but overall, we are very proud of her and she’s doing marvelously.

Add the mess that is DST to the mix and I’ve basically been down for the count. We are all tired. Exhausted, really. And up until yesterday, the girls and I were suffering from a huge case of cabin fever due to the self imposed potty training house arrest. Hopefully the next few days will help the girls (especially Evalyn) get back on track with their normal routines and schedules so we can all feel a bit more rested again. Why is it that they have no problem adjusting back to the 7:30 bedtime but they still want to get up an hour (or more, hello 4 am mornings!) early? No fair. I feel more tired than I have throughout Gwen’s entire life. Motherhood is constant, isn’t it, though?

Amidst all of this our sweet Gwennie turned four months old last Friday. Trust me, I have not forgotten this. I swear I’m not giving into the second child syndrome clichés. I have all of her pictures selected and ready to go but was purposefully leaving the post for today because we had her appointment this morning and I wanted to include her stats. But then we ended up hanging out with our Buds today so alas, no post. Tomorrow the girls and I head to Nana and Papa’s for the weekend and following that we will have SIL and niece here for a few days. All of this means I probably won’t be back until all of that simmers down. But when I’m back? Watch out. Because I’ll be back.

surprise! a post about halloween!

So, in case you didn’t know – yesterday was Halloween. Surprise!

I have to admit, I kind of dropped the ball on Halloween. As of last Thursday, my kids didn’t even have costumes. Thankfully, though, Kar came to my rescue and showed up on my doorstep with a bag full of costumes to choose from.

We settled on a Pink Bunny for Eva and a GloWorm for Gwenner. Cute, right?

Last night, we headed down into town to have pizza and wings with the Aunties before setting out for trick or treating. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go down because of the weather forecast, but thankfully there was a nice little window where the rain wasn’t very heavy so we were able to sneak out.

Through the day yesterday, Evalyn and I talked about trick or treating and how it would go. I told her she’d ring the door bells, say trick or treat and then people would put candy into the little bag that she had decorated. To say she was pumped would be an understatement. She was also a little confused. At one point yesterday she said to me, “Is trick or treat will kiss Eeba? Is trick or treat has a beard? And a sleigh? Do Eeba say, ‘cuse me Tirck or treat! Can Eeba has a candy?”

Despite the confusion – she managed to figure the whole thing out. And quite quickly, I might add. As soon as the first person gave  her candy, she said, “Okay, Mom. Yet’s go! Next place!” She asked at almost every place if she could go inside and at one place, she even attempted to take off with the entire bowl of candy. A girl after my own heart. We only went to about twelve houses, but that was more than enough to make this kid more hyper than I have ever, ever, ever seen her.

When we got back she and her Daddy had a riot sorting through all of the candy, picking out what to taste and getting super excited about all the goodies.

She opened the door for a few kids who rang at Auntie’s and then she and Evan headed off to drive around to visit a few other people. She went to see our old landlords, her auntie and uncle and her great grandparents. It made for a late night, but oh so worth it.

This morning when she got up, she sat up to the table for breakfast and I heard her say, “Daddy. Thank you for trick or treat. Thank you for driving to Tim and Shelley. It was pretty fun!”  Seeing the joy that this little activity brought to her life? Way better than any trick or treating memories I have! I forgot just how fun it was.

kids in the kitchen

Last week, I was set up to take a meal to a family at church who just welcomed their second babe. I decided this was the perfect time to reintroduce some baking into our lives. Other than the occasional pancake breakfast and a few pies, there haven’t been many homemade goodies in our lives lately since we moved and I am learning my way around a new (totally stupid and non-functional) kitchen.

The best thing about this kind of baking is that I got to enjoy the fun of baking and a few yummy treats without having the huge temptation of baked goods kicking around on my counter. At least if they are for someone else, I will know better than to eat them. Or at least, all of them.

Because I haven’t been baking lately, it’s been a while since I’ve asked Eva to come into the kitchen and help me out. So, as soon as Gwennie went down for her morning nap, I scooted a chair up to the counter for Eva and we got to work. I couldn’t believe the difference in her ability and interest level in baking since the last time we did this together. This time she actually helped. Instead of just “helping”. She followed the instructions, listened to me telling her what each of the ingredients were and put the proper number of scoops of ingredients into the bowl. Until we got to the chocolate chips of course. I gave her the scoop and told her to pour them in, she looked at me like I was crazy and said, “I don’t wanna” and started to eat them. Bless her heart. She’s just like her Mama.

Of course, she still didn’t quite grasp the waiting concept. You know, that the cookies aren’t ready as soon as you put them on the pan so there were definitely some necessary distraction tactics pulled out in the meantime.

In the end, it was worth the wait.

  Baking with kids in the kitchen may take twice as long and be twice as messy but hey! It’s twice as fun. We’ll definitely be doing lots more of this in the future.

to paint a pumpkin

On Monday, we had a gorgeous, sunny, warm day – one that was much more reminiscent of early spring than of mid-autumn. Add to that the fact that Nana was down for a visit and it seemed like the absolute perfect day to bust out some good ol’ fashioned pumpkin painting fun.

We’ve had a few pumpkins laying around since the day we went to the pumpkin patch, where Evalyn chose and brought home two to call her own. I kept thinking about carving them sometime but, honestly? That idea gave me anxiety. The mess and the gunk and the toddler who would inevitably spend the entire activity reaching out and trying to grab the knife – it just didn’t sound like something I was interested in doing with her quite yet. Maybe next year. Or the next. Or something. I decided that leaving the pumpkin intact, without any sharp objects present, would be a more enjoyable activity for us all.

So, we took advantage of the warm, sunny day and spread a plastic table cloth out on the driveway. I filled a plastic container with finger paints, dressed the tot in clothes that could be made messy and let her go wild.

And go wild, she did. She kept her interest in this activity for almost an hour. That is like, at least 16 days in toddler attention span time. She had so much fun! Talking about the colours, mixing them around, painting our names, different shapes and patterns, and, you know … sitting ON the painted pumpkin. She was happy to get her chubby little fingers all messy and paint covered. She was happy to see Mommy and Nana getting messy with her. She all around had a blast.

Since then she’s been asking for more painting again and again and again. So I guess that means it’s a good thing I left the pumpkins sitting outside on the patio table overnight. When it rained. And totally cleaned our (washable finger paint) painted pumpkins off.

They are good as new. So guess what we’ll be doing again on our next sunny day?

eva says more funny stuff

Okay I promise this will be the last “Eva says” post for a while. Or maybe not. Who am I kidding? At the rate she goes, this will become a weekly feature.

***

Eva likes to always let me know what’s going on with her sister. The best example is when G is screaming, Eva will clap her hands and yell, “Oh! Gwennie’s AWAKE. Gwennie’s AWAKE!” Thanks, hun. You know, the screaming didn’t tip me off. She’s also eager to praise her and get excited when Gwen learns something new. Right now, most commonly she jumps around and shouts, “Yook Mom! She’s holding a toy! Gwennie’s holding a toy!” I couldn’t let Gwen CIO even if I wanted to. As soon as the tiniest peep comes from her room, , Eva will say, “Dah sounds yike Gwennie’s awake. Yet me go check”. And in she goes.

***

Don’t be grossed out but I have a corn on my foot. Okay, be grossed out. The other day, I had my feet up on the coffee table and Eva saw it. She looked appalled and said “What is that?” I told her it was called a corn and she pushed my foot down and said “DAT is yucky. Don’t make me yook at it”. Ha. Similarly, a while back she pointed to a mole on my face and said, “Oh Mom. You got a sick right there”. Then when we were at the inlaw’s for Thanksgiving, Evan climbed in bed with her when she decided to wake up at 5 am. She put her arm around him and started rubbing his neck, her fingers came across a zit on his neck and in the pitch black she whispered, “Daddy. You got a sick”. Not sure where the word ‘sick’ came from – but needless to say,  zits have a new name in our house now.

***

On Saturday, we went to the mall as a family to get Gwen’s ears pierced. Then we headed across the street to meet my aunt and uncle for supper. On the way over, Eva wanted me to sit in the back between her and G. I told her I was going to sit in the front with Daddy and she said, “Once upon a time, Mommy sat right here beside me”.

While we were at the restaurant we were eating, minding our own business when she shouted, “Mr Noodle is here! Der’s Mr. Noodle” Finally, we turned around and sure enough, Mr. Noodle’s look alike was sitting at the next table. Maybe it was Mr Noodle’s brother Mr. Noodle.

***

She loves to sing, always has. And recently, there are more and more and more made up songs coming out of her mouth. For example, to the tune of “Mr Sun”, “Toys away, away, put my toys away. PUT! MY! TOYS away!” and always the favourite, “Kumbyah my Yord, I see penguins! Kumbyah my yord, Gwennie’s sleeping”.

***

For her birthday, C gave Evalyn a whoopie cushion. The other day, Evan got it out and was driving her nuts with it. She wanted to hold it and every time she got close to take it from his hand, he would make it fart in her face. She was getting so mad at him and finally, in exasperation, held her hand up to him and yelled “Daddy. Please. I ASKED YOU DON’T SQUEEZY IT ANYMORE!” He does the same thing with his “owie” (he lost a fingernail in an accident a while back and now it’s growing back – she is very fascinated by it – gross).  Every day when he gets home, the first think she does is asks to see his owie. She always wants to touch it but is scared because she knows he’s startle her when she gets close. So now she said, “I am asking you. Don’t move your owie!”

***

The other day, Caley and Connor were over for a visit. They were going to take a picture of Eva to send to uncle Craig. Caley gave Eva thumbs up and told her to do that for the picture. The rest of the morning, she kept asking both Caley and I to “do the finger stick”.

***

At the end of her nap, she always calls to me until I come to get her. The other day, it went a little like this: “Hey MOM! It's Eeba! Do you hear me? MOM! It's Eeba! In my room. I hear you Mom. MOM COME OBER DIS WAY?” and then a few minutes later, she walked out of her room wearing nothing but a diaper and socks. This was the first time she figured out how to open her door - which actually isn’t that hard since we don’t even have door knobs yet :). But, I will say that she was wearing MUCH more than just a diaper when she went down for her nap. She has since become quite the nudist, taking off her clothes at random moments. Like yesterday when I was making dinner and came into the living room to find her in the jumperoo, bouncing away, with nothing but a diaper on. She has even started taking her diaper off sometimes. I caught her the other day, in the washroom, “dumping the poop into the toilet” the way she sees me do it .Thankfully, there was no real poop.

***

When Eva gets in trouble we often say "Don't speak like that" so now when she says "sorry" and we say "for what?" she says "for speaking". I promise, we do let her speak. Sometimes.

***

One day when I picked her up from school, the teacher told me that when they sat down for snack, she got all serious and said to the other kids, “Kay boys. No talking. It’s time to eat.”

***

One day she slammed her head on the hardwood floor because she slipped and fell while having a fit. Her fit was because she asked for a banana and when I gave it to her, without the peel, she lost her mind because she wanted it “in da closet”.

***

G always laughs when we nibble her toes. I guess I can see how this could be misleading to Eva who walked over to her last week and bit her foot. Really hard.  The same thing happened when I was shaking a rattle toy in front of Gwen’s face and saying “boo” with it to make her laugh. Eva took it from me and hauled off and whacked Gwen in the face with it. Fail.

***

Eva loves to pray and to read the bible. The other day, she was reading her bible to her dolls and I heard her saying “Dis God’s word. The people say YAY God. Tell me da words. Tell me, what God made? God made the sky? I teach you about God. Now, we got to pray”.

*** 

I asked Eva if she would like to go grocery shopping today. Her response? "We go grocery shopping on Sun-der-day Mommy! ONLY Sun-der-day!" Also she has started saying lasterday, which is basically the best ever.

surviving the bedtime crazy

Because of Evan’s job and everything with the house and so on, I am solo for bedtime a lot of the time. Not all of the time, and not nearly as much now that we are actually in our house, but sometimes. And for me, since becoming a mom of 2, this has been the most difficult and challenging aspect to conquer. I cannot figure out how to get through the hours from 6-8pm when I’m on my own and come out of it still standing on two feet. Sure, the bedtime crazy hasn’t done me in yet, but I feel like it’s come pretty close some days.

The thing is, the further and further we go, the earlier and earlier Gwen likes to go to bed. So while we seem to be (thankfully) past the time of crazy fussiness in the evening, I’m now facing the challenge of how to get them both in bed at essentially the exact same time. I’ve been trying a variation of different things, mixing up our routine, adjusting the order of things, trying to adjust nap schedules and so on – all in hopes of figuring out a system that will help me get through the evenings without feeling quite as frazzled. All of you experienced moms are probably sitting there laughing at me. Developing a system? Figuring out a routine? Getting through bedtime without being frazzled? Clearly, I’m expecting far too much.

Anyway, over the past 3 something months, I’ve figured out a few things that work and a few that don’t. One thing I’ve had to teach myself is that it’s okay to mix up the routine a bit. Especially with Evalyn. When she was an infant I was a stickler for her evening routine. I was terrified that if I strayed, it would mess up her sleep. Now I laugh at myself for this fear. Girlfriend didn’t sleep through the night until she was a year old. So what exactly was I afraid of messing up??

So now, although I like to keep a semblance of a routine in the evenings, I’ve learned that it’s okay to toss it up a bit. Gwen often (not always) has a good evening nap starting anywhere between 5-6 and ending anywhere between 6-7. These nights are the nights that I don’t struggle as much to get through the bedtime crazy. Obviously. So, on these nights, if Eva needs a bath, I give her one right after supper and then she plays in her PJs until snack/bedtime. There’s no reason why her bath has to be immediately before bedtime like it used to be. This way, by the time Gwen is up, Eva is all ready to go. Just needs a snack. Because of the good nap, too, Gwen is usually happy and okay with being relegated to the play mat while I tuck Eva in. If she’s not pumped, she comes with me into her room and we all do prayers and songs together. Then as soon as Eva’s tucked in, I move on to bath, PJs, nursing and bed for Gwen. Thankfully, she’s chill and loves sleep and even if she naps until 7pm she has no problem being back in bed and asleep by 7:45.

On the evenings that Gwen doesn’t have a good nap? Well, that’s a whole-notha-story! These are the nights that I want to hide under a blanket and let the girls put themselves to bed. Not only does it mean that Gwen is usually fussy but it also means that she’ll be ready for bed earlier – probably RIGHT when Eva is, not 10-15 minutes after like normal. If it is bath night, I have started bathing them together – which makes a huge difference. The set up is not ideal but it works. I stick Gwen’s baby tub IN the big tub, fill it up and also fill up the tub itself with a bit of water for Eva. She doesn’t care if she doesn’t get much water. She just likes being in there with her sister. I make sure to have everyone’s towels, lotions, diapers, PJs and Gwen’s bouncy seat in the room with me before we start since I know I won’t be able to leave the room to attend to one while the other is still in there. I clean Gwen first and then get her out while Evalyn continues to play. I lotion, PJ and bouncy seat her in record time and then move on to washing, drying, loitoning and PJing Eva. These nights get a little hairy as Gwen expects the b00b ASAP after getting her PJs on, so she gets quite cranky in the meantime.

These are the nights when Evalyn’s bedtime gets rushed and frantic, which I hate. But, what can I do? I go back and forth between popping Gwen’s paci in her mouth while she’s screaming her head off and frantically reading a book, saying a prayer and singing one verse of the shortest song I know to Evalyn. Coincidentally, these are also the nights that Eva usually takes forever to fall asleep.

Although I’m sure the day will soon come when I have no choice, I haven’t yet jumped to putting Gwen down before Evalyn. My reason is both selfish and logical. Number one (logical reason), it takes way more effort to put Gwen down. It involves 10-15 minutes of nursing, some cuddling and rocking and so on. Number two (selfish reason), I love this time to be peaceful, quiet and dark – laying in my bed, alone together. Obviously we wouldn’t be able to keep it up that way with the Tasmanian Toddler running around.

Of course, once Gwen drops her evening nap, there’s a good chance she will need to go to bed before 7:45, and so I’ll have to make those adjustments. But for now, 7:45 is a good time. It works for her. It works for Eva. And, it works for me – even if it means I’m sweating and have an accelerated heart beat by the time it’s all done.

So, any tips? Anything you’ve done to help manage the bedtime chaos a little better when you’re solo?

the day I started (and quit) potty training

I’ve had this post started and sitting in my drafts for a long, long time. Since September 8th, be exact. The day I quit potty training. Let me tell you a little about it.

For months, Evalyn has been showing signs that she’s “ready”. Everything from interest in the potty (like, major interest … almost obsession. She plays potty with her dolls, is so intrigued when other kids are going and always wants to pretend to potty), to asking to go potty, to praising me for going potty, to telling me when she is going to/has gone pee or poop. Tons of people told me that I should start training her, that they were certain she was ready and that once she got the hang of it she would catch on it no time at all. And I thought they were right. I thought all of these things as well. So, I bought us some big girl undies, we talked about the undies, we talked about going potty all the time, I showed her how I go on the potty and so on and so on…

After our labour day getaway to Nana and Papa’s cottage, I decided it was time to hit potty training square between the eyes. We had a long string of days with no commitments and so I vowed to become a hermit and stay at home, put away the diapers, bust out the big girl undies and take her to the potty every 15 minutes and blah blah blah blah.

Well, let me tell you – it was a disaster. A major, major disaster.

Don’t get me wrong … I don’t have my head in the clouds. I don’t expect potty training to be a complete breeze. But, friends, I do expect it to be easier than those few days were. It was horrific.

The first day, she went through twenty one pairs of underwear. No, we don’t own 21 pairs. I did a load of emergency laundry part way through the day. She was dribbling non stop all day long. Somehow, don’t even ask me how, we managed to have a #2 success that very first day right after lunch (let me also say, she had peed and pooped on the potty numerous times before this – but never anything consistent or predictable), but her reaction was less than wonderful. She freaked and did not respond well to the praise or the reward. And that success was the last one we had – despite sticking with the training for two more days. Over the next few days, there were far less accidents. She seemed to have figured out the concept of holding it and peeing all at once, rather than little dribbles here and there all day. She would stay dry for 2-4 hours between pees. The only problem? She never, ever, ever peed on the potty. She would sit on it for 20 minutes at a time, do nothing, walk out into the living room and pee on the floor and then say, “I has to go potty and get a treat now”.

After a while, I was starting to get frustrated. So frustrated. Enough so that I got angry, yelled at her for peeing, once again, all over my dining room chair and put her down for a nap with barely a song and hug because I was so frustrated and fuming. The look on her face told me she was confused as to why I was mad. And as soon as I left her room, I recognized that my reaction and frustration was wrong, oh so wrong, and entirely unfair to her. I was ashamed of myself for acting that way and getting her in trouble for something she couldn’t understand or control.  I am not proud to admit these things – but this is real life, and I’m telling it like it is.

So right then and there I decided to call it quits. We were done. No more potty training for now.

When I made the decision to call it quits for now, I was hard on myself. So hard on myself. I thought it was a major parenting fail. But then the more I thought about it and after a few conversations with some wise moms who I highly respect, I realized that my decision to wait a while longer was more of a parenting success than anything.

It is a success because I was able to find the balance between being persistent and not giving up and recognizing that my child is not ready. It’s a ‘success because it means I am setting aside any pressure I have felt from others to get her trained and trusting my instincts as a mother to know that despite her verbal articulation of all things potty related, she just isn’t quite there yet. It’s a success because it means I’m taking into account the entire picture and doing what is fair for both of my children. It isn’t fair to pressure Eva before she’s ready and it wasn’t fair to Gwen to be constantly ignored over those few days while I raced back and forth with Eva to no avail. I even unlatched her and left her screaming a few times as I rushed to get Eva on the potty. It is a success because I’m letting her take the lead and follow her cues rather than forcing something that’s just not there yet.

So, sure … it would be nice to have one kid out of diapers but for now, that’s just not happening. We’ll get to it again … eventually. And when we do, when she’s ready, really, really ready… I know she’ll rock it. Besides, as one of the wisest women I know said to me during our first ordeal, “Don’t stress. It will happen. Seldom do we see a high school student who is not potty trained”.

So, see ya later Potty Training. We’ll see ya when we see ya.

to encourage her more

With a two year old running around the house, sometimes I feel like I’m saying ‘no’, handing out time-outs and sending Eva to her room more than anything else. Discipline is a major part of toddlerhood. And, unfortunately, sometimes it feels like it’s the biggest part. There are days when it feels like I’ve been doing nothing but disciplining. And those days are no fun.

Yesterday was one of those days.

But then, in the last hour before bedtime, Evalyn and I had a few moments where she taught me a few important lessons. Maybe sometimes the days feel like this because I make them like this. Because I get exasperated too easily. Because I get stressed too easily. Because I pick out her bad behaviours too easily. Because I am too quick to resort to disciplining.

Maybe some days feel like this because I focus too heavily on the negative and don’t reward the good behaviour enough.

Yesterday, it was just me and the girls from morning to night. Evalyn was at preschool in the morning, had a quick lunch and then had the world’s longest nap. So, it’s funny that I feel like our day was so exhausting considering she and I didn’t even spend a whole lot of time together. But even so, sometimes just a few moments with a toddler can feel long. So long. It was feeling like that.

From 4 pm when she woke up until dinner time, I heard myself say, “No”, “Please don’t do that” and other versions of this same message over and over again. After dinner, I was cleaning up and she was playing with her kitchen toys. She got frustrated with something and I turned around just in time to see her chuck the container of pizza toppings across the room, scattering them everywhere. My first reaction was to yell. But by the grace of God, I didn’t.

Instead, I calmly asked her to use her words instead of throwing a fit. She looked up at me and said, “Play pizza with me”. Lesson number one – sometimes her bad behaviours simply come from the fact that I’m not giving her enough undivided attention. I told her that I would love to play with her but that she would need to pick up the pizza toppings that she threw first.

Within a minute, every single one of those toppings was back into container where they belong.

She picked it up and said, “See Mommy? I pick up pizzas”.

I leaned down to her level, took her by the shoulders and asked her to look at my eyes. When she did, I said, “Thank you for listening and obeying the first time. It makes Mommy very proud when you listen and pick up your toys”.

She beamed. Absolutely and completely beamed. And? For the rest of the evening, she was an angel. Lesson #2 – encouragement and affirmation can  often go a whole heckuva lot further than discipline and reprimanding.

After this, she was having a bath and I could  tell she was struggling to articulate something important. She often does this and I know she’s trying to say something she can’t fully grasp because she’ll start to ramble and say, “and, and, and” over and over again. Usually, once she thinks about it for long enough, she figures out how to say what she’s thinking – even if the words don’t all come out just right. So, after rambling and tripping over her words for a while, she finally managed to get her thoughts together and said one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard her little 2 year old mouth say. “Mommy, my heart inside. God made it good. God be happy. I pick up my toys. My heart good. You be proud". Bless her heart. Lesson # 3- She soaks it up. She remembers. Every little thing.

And so because of these moments and these (not so profound) realizations that my daughter helped me come to – I am making a commitment -  a conscious effort to change the way I parent. To encourage her more and discourage her less.

eva says

Every day Eva says 492905 things that I want to capture and memorize forever. None of them in themselves are interesting enough for a blog post, but together, they become who she is. So, although it may not be interesting to many of you – this post is a random smattering of our girl’s latest crazy.

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She sometimes (often) has trouble with the order of her words and the inflection in her sentences. When she sees a baby, she will say to me “Momm is that baby cute” or “Mommy is that baby asleep”, when really there is no question about it. She is simply telling me the way it is with the order of her words mixed up. She does a similar thing when she’s asking someone to do something for her. “Daddy, can’t you help me? Mommy, can’t you get me a drink?” And the way she says it implies that we are absolutely incapable beings and she’s entirely exasperated with our lack of ability.

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She’s recently become fascinated with different things and the noise they make. She’s constantly interested in the noises she’s hearing in her surroundings. And when she hears something new, she asks us, “What’s with that noise?”

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When we are playing and she’s giving me a choice about something, she’ll hold two options to me (say, two different coloured blocks) and say, “Okay Mommy. Which one you want, you like?” and along the same lines, another mixed up order of the words thing, she will always add I want to the end of a sentence when she wants to do something. “I play toys now, I want” or “I go ober der now, I want”.

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As I’ve written a million times before, she’s a little Mama. She spends the majority of the day taking care of her dolls. Lately, she’s moved on from calling everything Gwennie and now her dolls are all named “Baby Yadi”. The other day she was carrying one of her Yadis in a little sling that my mother in law made for her. She was rocking and bouncing her and said, “You need to has a naptime. Want my boobies swirst?”

And a few other visual examples of her taking care of babies…

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The other day I asked her if she was ready to get out of the tub and go get a snack. She replied, “No. I not ready. I not done hasing a bas-tub. I not all keen yet. I be all keen in a yittle while. I stay in the bas-tub, I want”.

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Girlfriend is obsessed with money. She loves to play shopping, hold hoard money and pay when we are out. She has suckered a few people at church into always dropping coins into her little change purse. So far, we’ve made for her first 3 years of college. When we are out shopping, she is always excited for when we are finished so we can “Go and pay da yady”.

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Sometimes around here we joke around and call each other Lazy Bones. A few mornings ago, Evan made eggs and toast for he and Eva and she said, “Good job on the eggs Bonesy Yaze” (Sidenote: when the L’s stop sounding like Y’s and the F’s stop sounding like “SW”s I will cry. Mark my words).

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Her favourite song is Wheels on the Bus. We sing it non-stop all day long. And now, whenever we see a bus, instead of calling it a bus or a school bus she says, “Ders a wheels on da bus go round and round!”

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We live in the country on 1.5 acres. We are surrounded by farmland. The people we bought our house from still harvest the fields all around us and so they are around a lot right now with it being the harvest season. Evalyn is 70% enthralled and 30% terrified by the huge machinery (combines, tractors etc) that drive up and down the lane in front of our house on a day to day basis. She was getting ready to go outside with her Daddy to watch them combine when she started saying, “You don’t scare da tractors, Daddy. Okay, you don’t scare da tractors. They don’t get you. They don’t come to you”. Pretty sure she was trying to convince herself not to be scared of them.

This same thing happened with the farm across the street where there are horses and goats and a donkey. She wants to go over and see them and feed them every single day but for the first little while she couldn’t quite convince herself not to be afraid. As we would walk across our lawn to go see them she’d say, “Da horses not scare you. Dey not scare you. Dey in da swence (fence). Da horses not scare you, Mommy”.

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Another one about the horse farm … the owner’s name is Allan. Today I heard her singing “Old McDonald had a farm. And on that farm he had an Allan, E I E I O”.

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If I could capture the way she pronounces breakfast for the rest of my life I’d be a happy woman. I can’t even pronounce it. My closest guess is “breast-tist” but sounds even funnier than that.

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Well, that’s only about half of the little tidbits I had written on my list to document. Yes I wrote a list of things. Pick your jaw up off the floor. So, looks like we’ll be seeing part 2 of this post sometime soon with the rest of my lady’s funnies.

it’s easier. and it’s harder.

Since becoming a mom of two, I have found that one of the most common questions I’m asked is, “Is having two kids easier or harder than having one?” I find this a tricky question to answer. In short, my answer is having two kids is easier than having one kid. And it’s harder than having one kid. How is that even possible? I’m not sure.

You see, it’s like this. Having two kids who are less than two years apart in age is crazy. Of course, I’m sure having two kids who are any space in age is crazy – but this is my experience. The only experience I know. My days are jam packed full of diapers, spit up, sippy cups, breast feeding, temper tantrums, Diego, silly songs and messes. My days are also full of cuddles, dance parties, long afternoon naps and sweet, sleepy bedtime snuggles. It’s exhausting and constant. But, even more than that, it’s rewarding and fulfilling. Some days, at the end of the day, when I find myself laying in bed, I feel like the day that just passed is a haze. Sometimes, I’m not even sure what all happened between my feet hitting the floor in the morning and my head hitting the pillow at night. Sometimes, I feel like I’m struggling to keep my head above the water. And those days, those are the ones where I feel like having two kids is harder than having one.

When I stand in this crazy, chaotic place that I am right now, with a two year old and a three month old and I look back on the days when I had “just” a 3 month old, yes, I admit, I sometimes think and probably say … “Wow. Having just one kid was so easy”. Just this morning I went shopping with Gwen while Eva was in preschool and I thought multiple times how easy it is to shop with just an infant. No goldfish crackers flying at the stranger next to me, no arguments about if we should walk or go in the stroller, none of that. Just a quiet baby in an ergo who was happy to be along for the ride. But the thing is this – I would never in my life want to invalidate the feelings of a first time mom by saying those things. I would never want to be the one to say, just you wait because having just one kid is sooo easy.

Because heaven knows that 2ish years ago, if you had looked at me, you’d have known that it wasn’t easy. It was anything but easy for me in the moment – when I was in the trenches. That’s why they say hindsight is 20/20. (I almost wrote hindsight is 50/50. Ha, Mom brain). But foresight is not.

When Eva was just 5 months old, I wrote this post. (I wrote the current post before I went back and re-read that post. Interestingly, in that post, I wrote the exact same line – hindsight is 20/20. Foresight is not.) In that post, I wrote about how my feelings as a first time mom had been invalidated by people who were quick to tell me just how easy I had it. And now that I sit here, in their position, I know that what they were saying was valid. But that doesn’t mean it was right or okay. Because it wasn’t. It was demeaning, invalidating and insensitive. And that is exactly what I would never want to do to another mom.

Time and experience are funny things. You can always look back on time and look back at past experiences to compare them to now but you can’t do it the opposite way. You cannot look ahead and to compare your current experience to something you have yet to experience. You cannot be a brand new mom of one baby and look ahead and know what it will be like to have two babies. Just like I can’t, as a mom of two, look ahead and know what it will be like to have three babies.

Now, I can sit here and look back at the days when I had one baby and realize aspects of it that were easier. Easier than what though? Easier than what I’m experiencing now, but not easier than anything I had experienced then. So I can also recognize that at the time I was experiencing them, they were not easier … because it was the first time I had done anything like it.

My adjustment to two kids has been alright. Not perfect. Not completely stress free. But alright.

My adjustment to two kids has definitely been way easier than my adjustment to one kid. I’ve had these conversations with a few of my friends/family members who are on kid #1. Some of them have said that they feel like they can hardly get anything done with one kid so how can I manage to get dinner on the table with two kids?

The thing is this – before Eva was born, my life was kid free. Before Gwen was born, my life was already kid filled. I had already adjusted to the life style that is dictated by nap schedules, meal times, children’s activities and so on. I was already used to being home by 7 every single evening of the week to get a kid to bed. I was already used to having very limited one on one time with my husband. I was already used to spending many days of the week in the house, without ever going anywhere. I was already used to having to get some kind of food on the table for the sake of my child, even if it was the last thing I wanted to do. I was already used to all of these things.

And that’s why, for me, the adjustment to two kids has been easier than the adjustment to one kid.

When Evalyn was 3 months old and I had “just” one baby to look after, most days I could hardly manage to change my underpants. My teeth went unbrushed, my hair unwashed, the house was usually a mess and getting dinner for my husband was quite often an after thought. Because I was in the throes of sorting out this whole motherhood thing, adjusting to the different dynamics in my marriage, figuring out how to function as a zombie and all in all – attempting to reconcile who this new person looking in the mirror at me was. Figuring out what it meant to be Mom.

By the time Gwen came around, I had assimilated myself into that role already. I am already Mom. I am used to having dirty hair and wearing the same yoga pants for eighteen days straight. My standards for keeping up my house have changed drastically. I’ve learned to embrace and accept the constant chaos and the occasional ahem, never ending dust bunny that collects under the couch.

It wasn’t as earth shattering to add a baby this time because the pace, the flow and the dynamic of this family, of my life, of my identity – all of that already revolves around little people and everything that comes with them.

So yeah, having two kids is harder than having one. And having two kids is easier than having one. I’m not sure if that’s the right answer. But then again, I’m not sure if it’s the right question either.